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Walker would take thousands of people currently on Wisconsin’s relatively generous Medicaid program — people who are above the federal poverty level — and move them into the Obamacare exchange instead, where they can get federally subsidized private insurance. Walker has already said he won’t run the exchange, requiring the federal government to take control instead.

Once that group is out of Medicaid, he’d permit more of the state’s poorest residents to come in. But overall, Medicaid enrollment would drop by about 5,400, according to estimates provided by Walker’s office.

Walker packaged his plan as a responsible effort to cut into the ranks of the state’s uninsured while weaning low-income residents off a reliance on entitlement programs. He took credit for expanding coverage to about 225,000 more people — though the net gain would come through the federal program.

“With these Medicaid reforms, we will preserve an essential safety net for our neediest, while protecting our state’s taxpayers from uncertainty,” Walker said in a statement. The “uncertainty” refers to questions by some governors whether the federal government will live up to its promise to pay for most of the health law’s Medicaid expansion.

Advocates say people are better off in the exchanges, because they would have private insurance and more access to health care providers. But groups like Families USA say that Medicaid is generally a better deal for low-income people, because they are exposed to far fewer out-of-pocket costs.

Walker isn’t the only governor trying to carve out his own approach to Medicaid. A bipartisan pair — Ohio Republican John Kasich and Arkansas Democrat Mike Beebe — are trying to get the Obama administration to approve a type of partial Medicaid expansion which would give them access to the federal funds available to states that expand. The federal government is paying the full cost for three years, then phasing down to 90 percent.